TV Review: Kingdom Season One (2019)

Kingdom Season One (2019) written by Kim Eun-hee and directed by Seong-hun Kim

Set during Korea's medieval period, Kingdom tells the story of the nation's king who has been afflicted with smallpox. At least that's the official story. The Crown Prince (Ji-hoon Ju) is suspicious since no one is allowed to see the king except for a small set of advisers...and the queen. The queen is not his mother. She is the second wife of the king. In fact, she is about the same age as the crown prince. She's also pregnant. Since the crown prince is actually the son of a concubine, the royal lineage will fall to the unborn child if he is born before the king dies.

The king did die but a royal physician was brought in with the "resurrection plant" to keep him alive. Unfortunately, the cure turned the king into a flesh-hungry, irrational monster, i.e. a zombie. Political intrigues ensue as the Crown Prince investigates and the Haewon Cho clan (the queen is a member) schemes to get rid of the Crown Prince. Zombie mayhem also ensues as the corpse of the physician's assistant inadvertently causes a zombie plague outbreak starting from the doctor's rural clinic.

The show is a good mixture of royal drama and zombie horror. The political fencing would make a good drama all on its own. The gore starts off fairly mild though that increases during the third episode. The actors are very good and the stunt work and special effects are very realistic-looking (hardly any noticeable CGI). I enjoyed the ongoing story and the action/horror elements.

The big finale had two problems. We expected this to be a self-contained series but found out at the cliffhanger ending that there's another season. So we would have been left waiting around. Luckily the second season has already released. The other problem is a surprise twist about the zombies that really does not make much sense though they may have a chance to explain it away as the characters reading the situation wrong. At least I hope that's what happens. We will watch on.

Recommended.

This is currently available on Netflix (as of May 2020).